Goncalo Amaral's thesis trashed by SY and PJ

[Albertini]

I could not disagree more.   Gilets posts are calm, considered, and claims have obviously been properly researched and are backed up with evidence.     An asset to any debating forum where opposing views prevail IMO.

Quelle surprise.

[Luz]

He wrote his book AFTER he was removed from the case and after it was shelved.

Redwood is currently in charge of an active case.

Note the difference.

The mother wrote a book while her daughter is allegedly in the hands of pedophiles and doing to her what her mother wrote....If they didn't know what to do, Mrs. McCann enlightened them pretty well.

[imustpointout]

Correio da Manhã - What do you think happened to the body?

Gonçalo Amaral – Everything indicated that the body, after having been at a certain location, was moved into another location by car, twenty something days later. With the residues that were found inside the car, the little girl had to have been transported inside it.

How can you state that?

Due to the type of fluid, we policemen, experts, say that the cadaver was frozen or preserved in the cold and when placed into the car boot, with the heat at that time [of the year], part of the ice melted. On a curb, for example, something fell from the trunk’s right side, above the wheel. It may be said that this is speculation, but it’s the only way to explain what happened there.

[Albertini]

It is your supposition that it was 'concocted'. You have no way of knowing whether it was a genuinely held belief or otherwise.

Anyone with a modicum of common sense, gumption and deduction abilities can see the sheer ludicrousness of the proposition that there was someone hiding in the kids wardrobe when Gerry was there and subsequently darted out within 2-3 minutes in full view across the very road the child's father was stood in and talking on.

Using those same assets one can deduce, given this detail was added much later that it was simply created in order to facilitate a window of opportunity.

Says who? You? How do you know what the Oporto Inquiry or the SY Investigation are thinking?

We know they have ruled out the 9:15 sighting which indicates an abduction nearer the time of the Smiths sighting at 10:00. We also know the distance is around 5 minutes from 5A to the Smiths sighting. This leads to an abduction around 9:50-9:55. Why would an abductor need to hide in a wardrobe when no one was in the apartment from 9:30 until 10:00?

Presumptions on anyone's part can be wrong. And alternatives may actually be true.

Presumptions, in order to carry weight, have to be based on "known knowns".  See above on what we now know about an abduction window.

Now you can presume that an abductor hid in the parents bedroom, but what facts we have from the files and from SY's comments offer no reason or logic why this abductor should need to hide in any wardrobe but particularly the wardrobe in the parents bedroom, when he came to abduct a child from the other bedroom.

You can presume that aliens abducted Madeleine, but there are no facts or logic in the supporting material and information which support that presumption.

Much like the idea an abductor who happens to have cadaver scent on his personage who hid in the wardrobe of the bedroom which did not contain the child he came to abduct, to hide from the child's parents who, in the time frame of the abduction, were not in the apartment and he had no need to hide from.

He may have opened the doors and pulled them close towards him while remaining standing. Not a very effective cover but in an emergency perhaps the best he could find.

Also there is the statement by Grime about the alerts in the apartment in which he suggests that the location may not be accurate as the cadaver odour could have pooled in a particular place due to air currents.

Nothing should be ruled out just because amateurs like you or me simply can't see how it fits. These things are best left to the professionals in my view.

I repeat the scenario presented by SY, which you appear to have so much truck with - indeed having built and populated this thread espousing its virtue and veracity - indicates the abduction happened much later than 9:15 during a period when no one was in the apartment. Why play hide and seek in a wardrobe to hide from people who were not there?

In relation to Grime's comments it is noticeable and not entirely coincidental that these air currents and transferal of cadaver odour only appear to have happened in 5A and nowhere else.

How odd.

[gilet]

Gilet, i have tried to leave this car crash of a thread alone but feel compelled to post.

Nowhere has any authority, either in the UK or PT, publicly come out and "trashed" the thesis of the PJ. In fact only a few days ago Hogan Howe came out publicly stating what a good job the PJ did in the initial investigation, against a difficult backdrop (mainly brought about by the parents media strategy).

If you had read more carefully you would have realised that I have never said that they have publicly come out and trashed the thesis of Amaral. However I have made it very clear that by implication they most certainly have done so. The fact that both review teams have indicated that there is no suspicion of the McCanns is evidence of that. Without suspicion of them, Amaral's thesis simply does not hold water.

You claim that Hogan Howe stated that the PJ did a good job in the initial investigation. He did no such thing and I challenge you to find any quotation from him that expresses that. What he did say was that all investigations are beset by problems and the McCann investigation was no different.

You claim you are all about evidence and facts, yet you have no evidence or fact to support that assertion and you choose to ignore the one statement from SY supporting  the initial investigation.

I repeat there is no statement from SY which states that the initial investigation was a 'good job'.

What you have is PUBLIC statements that state SY and the new PJ team are at this moment in time following abduction leads at this stage of a new and reopened investigation, which in the absence of clear and incriminating evidence against the family is the only place any investigation can start and restart respectively.

And I am prepared to listen to the public statements and accept them. Unlike some I retain some trust in the Police.

The results of SY's review (which it is not certain is even complete - it took 2 years for it to be two thirds complete in August, so logic would dictate the last third has not been completed in 3 months) is to eliminate the chief suspect, the one who the group built a narrative around over their later statements.

You seem to forget that the other suspects, Murat and the McCanns. Don't you think the elimination of these suspects may have taken priority?

At this time that leaves Smithman as the sole concrete lead on an abduction. Now as much as your valiant, but ultimately intellectually lightweight arguments attempted to convince the forum Mr Smith was wrong in identifying with 60-80% certainty, Gerry, and lest we forget whose daughter identified trousers we know Gerry had in PT at the time, the fact remains the sole lead for abduction comes from an independent witness who was prepared to make a statement identifying Gerry McCann.

Perhaps you missed the reports on Crimewatch, for example, and in the media over the last few days. But Smithman is not the sole lead on abduction. There were other individuals reported as being suspects or persons of interest, there was reference to a paedophile ring which could encompass some of them and now we are told that the Oporto team are pursuing other separate abduction leads.

Whilst one of the Smiths made a suggestion that the man who he saw was possibly Gerry McCann and one described trousers that bore a similarity to some Gerry possessed you are making a massive and incorrect leap to state that the only lead depends on one witness who identified Gerry McCann. First of all he did no such thing, He claimed it was a possibility on the basis that both Gerry and the man carried children over their shoulders in a similar way. Secondly none of the other witnesses gave any statement to suggest the potential abductor was Gerry McCann. Your leap is not a valid one at all.

So based on public announcements together with information about the one remaining sighting, the number of suspects for abduction has just halved, and the remaining suspect has been identified (again to 60-80%) as being Gerry.

Not at all. I repeat there were other potential suspects identified in Crimewatch and there are other potential suspects being investigated by the PJ Inquiry which you are completely ignoring.

Nor is your assertion that the Smithman has been "identified (again to 60-80%) as being Gerry" actually the full truth.  Your deliberate focus on this one person's statement and deliberate exclusion of the other family statements makes you appear deceptive. Of all the family only one member even thought it possibly might have been Gerry McCann. Do you not think that is a fairer and more honest account of the sighting?

These are facts Gilet. Facts along with evidence you state you use. So why are you trying to bend these facts and suggest Mr Smith was wrong to fit in with your own theory? That's not using facts. That's twisting facts to suit your agenda.

As I have made clear they are not full facts and in certain cases are not facts at all. There is no bending being done by me. However I am sure the readers will be interested to see the way you have excluded the other Smith family members to pursue your claim regarding the sighting. To me that really is bending the facts.

You have then created this thread crowing about the "trashing" of Amaral's thesis because the investigations at this new stage are looking at abduction leads (and once again let's remember the witness for the one remaining lead identified Gerry McCann).

Again you have totally twisted the facts. Lets be clear. Only one of the Smith family identified the suspect as POSSIBLY being Gerry. Your statement is factually incorrect and clearly deceptive in that it ignores the other statements.

To suggest that a newly opened and reopened investigation which are at this stage looking at abduction, must automatically mean Amaral's thesis has been trashed, displays not just intellectual paucity but huge naivety as well.

But that is not what I have simply suggested.

If you again look back carefully at what I have posted, I have given clear evidence for my claim.

I have demonstrated that SY have stated that Amaral's thesis no longer holds water in the declaration that the McCanns are not suspects. How can they be considered to have acted criminally if they are not even suspects? Your argument is illogical.

I have also demonstrated evidence that the PJ team no longer believe that the McCanns are suspects. Once again that means that they have dismissed the Amaral thesis as irrelevant.

It is not naive of me to look at the evidence and base solid conclusions on that evidence. Rather it is naive of anyone to retain confidence in the Amaral thesis now that there is no suspicion from the Police of the McCanns.

In the absence of clear and compelling evidence against the McCann's it would have been tactically nonsensical and probably prejudicial to any future trial to publicly state they are suspects.

But it is also tactically nonsensical to go out of your way to make it clear that the McCanns are not suspects. And would most certainly prejudice any future trial.

There was no reason other than the most obvious one of truth to state publicly that the McCanns are not suspects.

Given the history of the case it is natural to state publicly they are not suspects, and none of us know what is going on in the operation room and how true that statement is in the grist of the actual investigation.

It is not natural at all to state publicly that the McCanns are not suspects. Why should it happen in this case above all others if it is not true?  It was a deliberate decsion to do so. Just because some don't accept the word of the police in such a deliberate and public statement does not mean we are all as cynical as you are.

Equally we know that suspects can change as leads and evidence change. In much the same way the Philpott's weren't suspects at the start of their case, and similarly Karen Matthews. Suspects and leads change as investigations progress and as lines of enquiry are exhausted and ruled out.


Having had a year-long investigation into the case which concluded that there was no evidence of any crime by the McCanns, having had two very thorough, two-year long reviews of all the evidence both of which have ended with declarations that the McCanns are not suspects I am of the opinion that your belief that evidence against the McCanns will suddenly appear is indeed rather naive or optimistic depending on your outlook. I would suggest that the lines of enquiry relating to the McCanns probably are exhausted and that is the reason that DCI Redwood felt able to go on record to declare that they were no longer suspects.

However the one things investigations do not do is to name suspects before they have what they think is enough evidence against them.

I am sure you know this, it is not rocket science, it is common sense.

Of course they don't but they do rule out suspects when that is appropriate. And you really don't need to make patronising remarks to get your point across.

The reason i have tried to avoid this thread because it is clear you simply wanted to come on here to gloat and you have over 10 or so pages displayed breathtaking arrogance, pomposity, an attempted air of superiority, condescension and rudeness coupled with faux outrage and disgust if others say something you do not like.

If you feel that is the case when what I have actually done is demonstrate the evidence to back up the post I made to open the thread then I am rather surprised.  I find there is a great deal of faux-outrage on the part of posters who fail to understand the evidence presented to them.

Then on top of this when posters have challenged you to name your main who gave Gerry an alibi at 10:00 you simply ignored them and the question!

I have ansewered the question frequently. Having posted the full quotation, the folio reference and the context there was no reason for me to name the person. It was perfectly clear who it was. I am not aware that the name matters. It is the content of the statement that matters. I do not enjoy posting the names of anyone involved in the case because I do not agree with the whole idea that the full case files with witness statements, names, addresses, phone numbers, photos in some cases etc were put in the public domain so freely in the first place. I think that was disgraceful and the opening of the file should have been done in the usual way not by the free distribution of DVDs to anyone who turned up as a journalist, genuine or otherwise.  However you may have missed it but the person was named when the full page was posted for everyone to read.


I have no idea why you cannot simply engage with people in the correct manner. It does you and the forum a huge disservice.

If you think engaging with people by expecting them to stick to the thread, to concentrate on the content of a post rather than names, to require evidence rather than speculation and to post fact which might not suit everyone but are nonetheless true then I am a bit disappointed but not really surprised.

I do not believe my posts do the forum any disservice at all.

[Benice]

Which is why he has such a high warning level, obviously. 

He spouts unevidenced propaganda masquerading as truth. Only those who are supportive of the McCanns are taken in by it.

On the contrary, IMO pushing the idea that another poster (who posts intelligent factual posts always backed up with evidence) is posting 'unevidence propaganda' is a statement which in itself clearly comes under the heading of 'propaganda'.

I am amazed that Gilet has any level of warning at all, and I am just as amazed that you don't.  Your post above like so many of your posts to or about people who disgree with you is rude and uncalled for IMO. 

You still haven't said why you think that people will be influenced in some way by Gilet's posts -  when it's crystal clear that you yourself are not affected in the slightest by them

The whole idea of debate is to try to persuade others (by way of reasoned debate - backed up with evidence), to form views which they may not presently hold.

From my observations it would appear that the reaction by some people to anyone attempting to do that - i.e. debate properly, is to drive them off the board - one way or another. 

[gilet]

Correio da Manhã - What do you think happened to the body?

Gonçalo Amaral – Everything indicated that the body, after having been at a certain location, was moved into another location by car, twenty something days later. With the residues that were found inside the car, the little girl had to have been transported inside it.

How can you state that?

Due to the type of fluid, we policemen, experts, say that the cadaver was frozen or preserved in the cold and when placed into the car boot, with the heat at that time [of the year], part of the ice melted. On a curb, for example, something fell from the trunk’s right side, above the wheel. It may be said that this is speculation, but it’s the only way to explain what happened there.

A great shame they didn't follow up and ask him for the evidence rather than his supposition.

He would have been a bit stumped then as there is no such evidence and never was any such evidence.

But after all he only claimed to know that Madeleine was dead and that the parent's covered that fact up. He never claimed to have any real evidence did he? Or was that the fabled "ace" up his sleeve that never materialised?

[gilet]

He wrote his book AFTER he was removed from the case and after it was shelved.

Redwood is currently in charge of an active case.

Note the difference.

No he did not.

He wrote his book before he left the Police and before the case was shelved.

It was published a matter of days after both those events and writing, editing and printing prior to publication took far longer than the few days between those events and the final publication.

Note the difference.

[gilet]

The mother wrote a book while her daughter is allegedly in the hands of pedophiles and doing to her what her mother wrote....If they didn't know what to do, Mrs. McCann enlightened them pretty well.

#

What a truly sick post!

[Mr Gray]

He wrote his book AFTER he was removed from the case and after it was shelved.

Redwood is currently in charge of an active case.

Note the difference.

Doesn't make a scrap of difference..he has prejudiced any possible case against the McCAnns

[C.Edwards]

On the contrary, IMO pushing the idea that another poster (who posts intelligent factual posts always backed up with evidence) is posting 'unevidence propaganda' is a statement which in itself clearly comes under the heading of 'propaganda'.

I am amazed that Gilet has any level of warning at all, and I am just as amazed that you don't.  Your post above like so many of your posts to or about people who disgree with you is rude and uncalled for IMO. 

You still haven't said why you think that people will be influenced in some way by Gilet's posts -  when it's crystal clear that you yourself are not affected in the slightest by them

The whole idea of debate is to try to persuade others (by way of reasoned debate - backed up with evidence), to form views which they may not presently hold.

From my observations it would appear that the reaction by some people to anyone attempting to do that - i.e. debate properly, is to drive them off the board - one way or another.

Let me guess. The reason I haven't is because the forum is moderated by rampant [ censored word] who are unfair to all the pros or something, right?  Nothing to do with the fact that the posters with the warnings aren't sticking to the rules?

Gilet has yet to post anything in the way of evidence as there simply ISN'T any evidence of abduction.  All he keeps doing is posting his interpretations of the media reports coming out at the moment and trying to make it look like facts.  You may fall for it, many others don't.

I imagine that the mods/admin on here are keen on making sure that the big increase in visitors here are informed in an unbiased way, i.e. not one favouring the favourable-to-the-mccanns interpretations that have no basis in fact (well, they might have, but there's no way we can know that at the moment - it's just as likely that the McCanns and friends are still under suspicion as the police would never announce this anyway).

Amaral's thesis may well end up being trashed. At the moment it hasn't been.

[gilet]

Anyone with a modicum of common sense, gumption and deduction abilities can see the sheer ludicrousness of the proposition that there was someone hiding in the kids wardrobe when Gerry was there and subsequently darted out within 2-3 minutes in full view across the very road the child's father was stood in and talking on.

Using those same assets one can deduce, given this detail was added much later that it was simply created in order to facilitate a window of opportunity.

So you are simply admitting that your comment is mere supposition? Do you really believe that all criminals act in totally logical ways? I don't and I am sure that experienced police officers don't.

Your deduction/supposition is simply that. One non-professional's take on the matter.

We know they have ruled out the 9:15 sighting which indicates an abduction nearer the time of the Smiths sighting at 10:00. We also know the distance is around 5 minutes from 5A to the Smiths sighting. This leads to an abduction around 9:50-9:55. Why would an abductor need to hide in a wardrobe when no one was in the apartment from 9:30 until 10:00?

You are stating something as known when it is not known. You are responding as if I referred to the SY review at this point but you quoted me in the previous post so should have realised it was the Oporto Review of which we know nothing that I referred to. We have no idea what the Oporto review is looking at though we have the indications it is stranger abduction.

The timings you refer to relate to what we know of the SY review and are not what I was referring to.

Presumptions, in order to carry weight, have to be based on "known knowns".  See above on what we now know about an abduction window.

If you had read carefully the sentence you quoted then you would realise the timings are irrelevant as we don't know anything about the Oporto review and I made no presumptions about them at all.

Now you can presume that an abductor hid in the parents bedroom, but what facts we have from the files and from SY's comments offer no reason or logic why this abductor should need to hide in any wardrobe but particularly the wardrobe in the parents bedroom, when he came to abduct a child from the other bedroom.

Well I didn't actually presume that as you claim. I merely posited it as a possibility, something good investigators do all the time, they consider all possibilities. However there is a logical reason why he may have done so if he had been aware that the general purpose of a visit from an adult to the apartment was to check on the children he would have sought somewhere else to hide if he had the time to do so.

You can presume that aliens abducted Madeleine, but there are no facts or logic in the supporting material and information which support that presumption.

Much like the idea an abductor who happens to have cadaver scent on his personage who hid in the wardrobe of the bedroom which did not contain the child he came to abduct, to hide from the child's parents who, in the time frame of the abduction, were not in the apartment and he had no need to hide from.

I have just demonstrated one logical reason for using the adult bedroom. As for the time frame, we really have no certainty as to what that might or might not have been.

I have no interest in aliens and find the insertion of the idea is usually a last desperate measure of someone who is losing the plot.

I repeat the scenario presented by SY, which you appear to have so much truck with - indeed having built and populated this thread espousing its virtue and veracity - indicates the abduction happened much later than 9:15 during a period when no one was in the apartment. Why play hide and seek in a wardrobe to hide from people who were not there?

He may have been there earlier than 9.15. We do not know with certainty if he was or not.

In relation to Grime's comments it is noticeable and not entirely coincidental that these air currents and transferal of cadaver odour only appear to have happened in 5A and nowhere else.

How odd.

It is noticeable too that the time spent by the dogs on the McCann car and in Apartment 5A massively exceed the time taken to do the checks in all the other residences and all the other vehicles. Co-incidence?

[gilet]

Doesn't make a scrap of difference..he has prejudiced any possible case against the McCAnns

As you say it wouldn't even make any difference.

But it isn't even true.

The book had to have been written while he was a serving policeman and before the archival for it to have been published immediately after the archival.

[Lyall]

As you say it wouldn't even make any difference.

But it isn't even true.

The book had to have been written while he was a serving policeman and before the archival for it to have been published immediately after the archival.

But not while he was involved in this case. That's the relevant issue.

[gilet]

But not while he was involved in this case. That's the relevant issue.

Not in my view it isn't.

Serving police officers still have access to files no matter how hard you try to pretend otherwise especially when those files are largely paper based and not subject to secure id checks on computer systems.